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}} Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934), commonly known as Lord Lucan, a British peer suspected of murder, disappeared without trace early on 8 November 1974. He was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family in Marylebone, the elder son of the 6th Earl of Lucan by his marriage to Kaitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson. Evacuated during the Second World War, Lucan returned to attend Eton, then from 1953 to 1955 served with the Coldstream Guards in West Germany. He developed a taste for gambling and, skilled at backgammon and bridge, became an early member of the Clermont Club. Although his losses often exceeded his winnings, he left his job at a London-based merchant bank and became a professional gambler. He was known as Lord Bingham from April 1949 until January 1964. Once considered for the role of James Bond, Lucan was a charismatic man with expensive tastes; he raced power boats and drove an Aston Martin. In 1963 he married Veronica Duncan, with whom he had three children. When the marriage collapsed late in 1972, he moved out of the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, in London's Belgravia, to a property nearby. A bitter custody battle ensued, which Lucan lost. He began to spy on his wife and to record their telephone conversations, apparently obsessed with regaining custody of the children. This fixation, combined with his gambling losses, had a dramatic effect on his life and personal finances. On the evening of 7 November 1974, the children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in the basement of the Lucan family home. Lady Lucan was also attacked; she later identified Lucan as her assailant. As the police began their murder investigation, Lucan telephoned his mother, asking her to collect the children, and then drove a borrowed Ford Corsair to a friend's house in Uckfield, East Sussex. Hours later, he left the property and was never seen again. The Corsair was later found abandoned in Newhaven, its interior stained with blood and its boot containing a piece of bandaged lead pipe similar to one found at the crime scene. A warrant for Lucan's arrest was issued a few days later, and in his absence the inquest into Rivett's death named him as her murderer. With the passage of the Criminal Law Act of 1977, the inquest into Rivett's death marked the last occasion in Britain when a coroner's court was allowed to make such a determination. Lucan's fate remains a fascinating mystery for the British public. Since Rivett's murder hundreds of reports of sightings of him have been made in various countries around the world, although none have been substantiated. Despite a police investigation and huge press interest, Lucan has not been found and is presumed dead. ==Early life and education== Richard John Bingham was born on 18 December 1934 at 19 Bentinck Street, Marylebone, London, the second child and elder son of George Bingham, 6th Earl of Lucan, an Anglo-Irish peer, and his wife Kaitlin Elizabeth Anne Dawson. A blood clot found in her lung forced his mother to remain in a nursing home, so John, as he became known, was initially cared for by the family's nurserymaid. Aged three years, he attended a pre-prep school in Tite Street with his elder sister, Jane, but in 1939, with war approaching, the two were evacuated to Wales. The following year, joined by their younger siblings, Sally and Hugh, the Lucan children travelled to Toronto, moving shortly thereafter to Mount Kisco, New York. They stayed for five years with multi-millionairess Marcia Brady Tucker; John was enrolled at The Harvey School and spent summer holidays away from his siblings at a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains. While in the U.S., John and his siblings lived in grandeur and wanted for nothing, but on their return to England in February 1945 they were faced with the stark realities of wartime Britain. Rationing was still in force, their former home at Cheyne Walk had been bombed, and the house at 22 Eaton Square had had its windows blown out. Despite the family's rich ancestry, the 6th Earl and his wife were agnostics and socialists and preferred a more austere existence than that offered by Tucker, an extremely wealthy Christian. For a time, John suffered nightmares and was taken to a psychotherapist. As an adult he remained an agnostic, although he ensured his children attended Sunday school, preferring to give them a traditional childhood.〔 At Eton, John developed a taste for gambling. He supplemented his pocket money with income from bookmaking, placing his earnings into a "secret" bank account, and regularly left the school's grounds to attend horse races. Although according to his mother his academic record was "far from creditable", he became Captain of Roe's House, before leaving in 1953 to undertake his National Service. He became a second lieutenant in his father's regiment, the Coldstream Guards, and was stationed mainly in Krefeld, West Germany. While there, he also became a keen poker player.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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